


Why don't you talk to each other anymore?

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 07:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13267110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: Asked by pressuredirhgtnow via tumblr; A prompt with the following combo; "Why don't you talk to each other anymore"// “Because strangers cannot start a conversation with ‘I’ve missed you’ even if it’s all there to say.”





	Why don't you talk to each other anymore?

**Author's Note:**

> Set in: Due to pressured’s petition the scene is set back at s3a where Regina and Henry happen to talk about Walsh and his relationship with Emma. I tweaked a little bit the general scene so it could fit more easily within so the opening dialogue is not the same.

“Where you and my mother close?”

The question gave Regina pause as Henry stopped and stared at her, the green of the grass around them suddenly sepia in color as the boy’s eyes glimmered with a hidden question Regina could feel lurking on the back of his brain. Ironing inexistent creases on her clothes, the former queen nodded -curtly- while humming, unsure of what answer she was supposed to give.

Henry’s head tilt was enough to let her know that her answer had all but closed that line of questioning and, as she kept on staring, unable to do anything else but swallow and wait, she could feel the slightly chilly air only getting colder as Henry kept eyeing her. Very much like he had done back on the days where everything had been a new world to explore, the incessant questions of “why” and “what” falling from his lips as he tried to wrap his head around concepts he would later on repeat to himself.

“She seemed…” Henry licked his teeth, his tongue peeking in a similar manner than his blonde mother would do. A similarity that made Regina’s heart jump, her memory still too used to the slight narrow of his eyes that she had known had come from her once upon a time. “Surprised to see you.”

Regina drew a shuddering breath as she looked at the teen that had been her little prince not so long ago. Her hands ached to comb his unruly bangs, smile at him and just let the rest of the world fade into the safe distance she had been living in before the first curse had been lifted. No magic, no impending threats or memories of the two of them that felt as slippery and brittle as ice.

Those times, however, were long gone and as she watched at the boy in front of her, ice cream on hand and inquisitive eyes still watching her, Regina took a gulp of air, filling her lungs into the scent she had learnt to recognize as Storybrooke. The light felt as slow and murky as she smiled, slowly, while she thought back on the woman the two of them were talking about. On her green eyes and tired expression, the tension on the younger woman’s shoulders apparent the last time they had spoken; fidgeting fingers pinching her own forearms and yet the same amount of trust that she had seen on the last image she had of both her and Henry. An image that made her tremble, the feel of beginning to cold air prickling the back of her throat.

“I think that was because we hadn’t seen each other in quite a long time.” Her answer was filled with silences, and she could see Henry reading on her every expression, the same calculated look from before shining through his face. A detail that almost made her smile; as much as he had loved secret operations the boy had always worn his heart on his sleeve. “And -she added, trying to give her voice a slightly airier tone, one that an almost stranger would use- last time we saw each other was quite a difficult one… I think we both doubted that we were going to see each other again.”

“And yet she left me with you.”

The boy’s sentence was enough for Regina to let her smile fall, her lips trembling as she bobbed her head up and down, unable to say anything else but an almost weak. “She trusts me” that felt like ash on her lips; the concept strange to her despite Emma’s last gaze as both Henry and herself had departed, the slightest spark of magic biting on Regina’s skin where Emma’s eyes fell.

“So why don’t you talk to each other anymore?”

Regina let her eyes fall into the nearby pond in where ducks kept on swimming, the color of their feathers melting into their own reflections of the water’s surface. It was, she thought, a valid question. One she couldn’t answer with the truth. Magic, as it was, had paid the price in the form of memories, of her own past with the teen in front of her and as a set as she was on restoring such memories, on returning him to her the magic she had made in order to protect him was still standing, still intact.

It wasn’t on her to tell him the truth, she thought bitterly, the memory of him asking her to be truthful with him still ringing on her ears. Yet, even if for her time hadn’t passed, for him it had.

As well as for the woman she had said goodbye to; realization still bleeding on her heart, her name on her lips as the blonde had sobbed, her body’s warmth close enough for them to almost hug as Regina’s fingers had burnt with the quickly nearing magic; sparks biting on her flesh.

The cryptic answer was then, she thought, returning back to the teen, her stomach twisting as she noticed how impossibly tall he had gotten.

“Because strangers cannot start a conversation with ‘I’ve missed you’ even if it’s all there to say.”

Her voice got carried away by a sudden slight stronger gust of wind and Henry hummed at it in a similar manner she had done previously, sugary treat forgotten as he cocked his head further, sunrays hitting on his eyes before his lips cracked in a smile Regina felt completely lost on it.

“And if I helped you both not being strangers anymore? We could turn this into an operation. I used to love those.”

For a second Regina almost laughed, a soft laugh that she managed to trap within her lips, swallowing it down as Henry kept on looking at her, a small, boyish smile parting his lips.

“Why?”

It was a question that she hadn’t thought on asking and yet it was what replaced her teary laughter. Henry’s answer, however, was a shrug and a lazy nod towards his ice-cream, blush on his cheeks.

“I like you… and I know my mother; she likes you too. She wouldn’t have left me with anyone she didn’t fully trust or liked. Walsh….” He wrinkled his nose, a small detail that wasn’t nor hers nor Emma’s. Snow perhaps. “I wasn’t with him that much.”

Regina wanted to tell Henry that the story he was imagining hadn’t ever happened; that both her and Emma hold a trust based on their shared love for him, that there wasn’t any operation in need to happen. Yet, despite everything, she found herself mute as Henry progressed with small tidbits of information he thought could come in handy for Regina to draw Emma’s attention; his age showing in the way he blushed and looked away as he mumbled details about Emma’s date-life Regina suddenly wondered how he had learnt.

She, not once, told him she didn’t love his blonde mother. That was the lie she found herself unable to tell.


End file.
